Day 12: Père Lachaise and a lot more rain

The tomb of Abelard and Heloise.

By this point we had seen most of the sights on our "Must-Visit" list. But there were a couple more places that we wanted to visit, if we could. One of these was the Cimetière du Père-Lachaise. Now, neither of us was desperate to visit the grave of Jim Morrison. But Marie wanted to make a point of it, because I had mentioned once upon a time that cemeteries can be a peaceful place to while away a spare hour—so she wanted to "watch me in a cemetery." Also her guidebook recommended the #69 bus route as particularly scenic, and that route stops right next to the cemetery.

So we took the Metro (actually the RER-C) out to the Champ de Mars, to pick up the #69 at its origin. We had a fairly long wait, but since we had nowhere else to be instead that wasn't a problem. The morning was foggy, and we watched the Eiffel Tower vanish into the fog and periodically reappear. When the bus arrived, we rode it across town to the cemetery.

The rain was intermittent all day, but it started up once we got inside the cemetery. Also it turns out that the Cimetière du Père-Lachaise is the size of a small city.* So we rapidly gave up the fancy of visiting the graves of prominent people. We found the tomb of Abelard and Heloise (pictured), because it was near to the entrance. We walked past the tombs of a lot of ordinary people, and tried to guess at the family situations that their grave sites hinted at. I climbed some stairs that Marie didn't feel like daring, to see a particularly gaudy tomb that turned out to belong to Elisabeth Alexandrovna Stroganoff.** And shortly after that we agreed we were getting soaked, and maybe it was time to do something else. 

Right outside the exit we found a brasserie, where we stopped for lunch. Then we took the Metro back into town and spent a little time at the Petit Palais. As we made our way from the Metro station to the museum, we noticed that some roads were blocked off and that a lot of police seemed to be congregating at the intersections. But we had no idea why, and didn't think much about it.

When we left the museum to take the Metro back to our hotel, we discovered that several stops were closed (including the one we normally used). So we rode on to the next one, and then started walking back … against a sea of pedestrians flowing the other way. Only later did we learn why: that day, more than 100,000 Parisians flooded the streets for a manifestation against antisemitism. That explained the barricades, and the police, and the closed Metro stations. And we never knew until it was over.

We got part way "home" and then ducked inside the Brasserie Balzar, partly to get out of the crowds and partly for an early dinner. The dinner was delicious, as most of our meals in Paris were delicious. But somehow we started talking about child-rearing, and why I think boarding school is a good idea. (See for example this post, and maybe this one.) Marie told me that my children were very "privileged," and I took the word badly. I spent considerable time arguing against this word, until she finally explained that she meant something different that I was arguing against. Maybe I'll pick up this theme in a later post. When we finally left and walked home, late at night, we talked about the books that were essential to us when we were growing up. Again, maybe I'll pick this up later.

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* I just checked Wikipedia; and at 110 acres, or 0.17 square miles, it is only a tiny fraction smaller than the Vatican City.   

** I'd never heard of her before; but she has an entry in Wikipedia, and her tomb sure is impressive.